80% of all those that are bi-polar report sexual abuse. Given that the remaining 20% may not report or many not have had the memories come into consciousness Bi-polar is more likely PTSD than biological based. Unless one assumes that being sexually abused is biologically based.

My goal is to be everything I can be. Not a reduction in symptoms.

Thing about goals is they can be limiting.

Just a note if you do work hard and heal those that push the reduction of symptoms will say “Sometimes these things just go away.”

The minimum standard should be a return to before treatment was started. Very seldom achieved as that is not the goal.

And for another perspective on whether garden variety depression (as opposed to major depressive disorder) is an illness or an evolutionary adaptation I found the following article to be particularly insightful and thought provoking.

It also helped me rethink my approach to my own PTSD, and the same principles seem to apply there too.

By the way Faith, how are you doing on that “being present” approach to weight management? I am feeling so fat lately. I need to do something and I HATE diets. I am not overly too over weight, but I LOVE food- everything about it- except that it can make you fat.
What was that book you were working out of called again?

My weight has been stable lately. I’ll probably start losing weight again once my kid gets back to school. (He is home for a five-day weekend.) I haven’t been able to get to the gym much lately with him out of school and with working too much before then.

The good news is that my weight is down ~ 15 lbs from where it was two years ago and has been stable there. Yay!

That’s very interesting. Here in the UK, the term “mental illness” is out now, in favour of “mental health problems”; it takes longer to type, but it’s inclusive of everyone. I do like the poster though, it’s very nicely set out, eyecatching and easy to read. Thanks for posting.

Actually – I think the numbers are vastly understated. My mother has never been treated for a mental illness (though in the past she was paranoid / psychotic / suffered bouts of depression . . . the list goes on and on. An abused child herself, with some childhood PTSD going on . . . courtesy of her Army stepfather, who brought it home with him from the war . . . he was in Iwo Jima, BTW) . . . and passed it on to me. Dad was locked in the nuthouse as a young man: PTSD, undiagnosed and untreated at the time, though they (the Army) did lock ‘them’ up on a small island somewhere in the Northern Sea of Japan . . . systematic cruelty; a closet sadist, given to backstabbing his friends and giving away all he had – at the expense of his family, who then had to go hungry and without clothes; the basic nessecities sometimes . . . not diagnosed. Add into that my brother: rage issues out the wang; used to be he’d draw down and shoot most anybody he’d get mad at (intentionally missing most times.) Once he got mad and shot his own car. Eight times. Undiagnosed OCD sorta guy: once he gets focused, there’s no getting his attention. As a result he leads a sort of unbalanced life: it’s all WORK (making money) – or exercising – either one or the other. One hundred percent of the time. The boy don’t play. Also paranoid; believes in many conspiracy theories – and might be right about some of them! He works with the rich . . . you don’t suppose (evil grinning . . . the boy really does know what he’s talking about sometimes) . . .

But the point here goes: Four people. Every one of them “insane” – in some sort of way or another. And there’s millions others when you include “Mood Disorders” and what not. Do you know – I saw on the CIT training manual where NAMI had put out a chart – and it has “ranges”. The top one lists a “normal” range – yeah, that’s right, you got it folks: a “Normal” range – of happiness down through to depression. Anyone “happier” or anyone “sadder” is having a problem.

And you know what got ME? Who in the hell has a right to decide how “happy” I must be before I’m declared insane? What’s wrong with being HAPPY – or especially EXUBERANT! – and having a good time – all the time – if you can during your own life? Apparently the psychologists and the ones who sit in judgement have decided that being a “little bit too happy” is being somewhat “mad” – and they can now and apparently (as they did for me) – lock you up for this thing. . . .

Whutta crazy world we live in, huh guys? (seeing my ‘insider’s” heads nodding all around)
And we must be crazy to be in it.
LOL!!!
Ya’ll have fun now – ya heah?